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Scott introduced as new basketball coach

Posted April 23, 2004; 02:31 p.m.

by rstevens

Joe Scott, a former player and assistant coach at Princeton who coached the Air Force basketball team to unprecedented success, was introduced as Princeton's new head basketball coach at a news conference this morning (April 23).

Scott, 39, a 1987 Princeton graduate who spent the last four seasons as head coach at Air Force, becomes the school's 27th head coach of men's basketball, effective immediately. He succeeds John Thompson, who became the head coach at Georgetown University April 20 after four seasons as the head coach at Princeton. Thompson, a 1988 Princeton graduate, led Princeton to three Ivy League titles.

Scott, a New Jersey native, helped the Princeton basketball team to the NCAA tournament as both a player and an assistant coach.

"Even more than the fact that Princeton is my alma mater and where I played basketball, it's a great university with a special basketball tradition," said Scott. "The administration made it known to me that I was the person they wanted for this job, and that made it easy for me to reach this decision to become the head coach."

"I am tremendously excited to announce that Joe Scott will become the next basketball coach at Princeton," said Director of Athletics Gary Walters. "Very few schools have the opportunity to appoint an alumnus of their university who was recognized as one of the top five coaches in the country this past season. His coaching job at Air Force was simply extraordinary."

Scott's 2003-04 Air Force team had the best season in school history and reached the NCAA tournament for the first time in 42 years before falling to North Carolina in the first round. The Falcons' 22-7 record was a program best, and the team's 12-2 Mountain West Conference record earned Air Force its first-ever conference regular-season championship.

More details
and audio from the news conference are available on the Princeton Athletics Web site.